Stealth Attack

by John Gilstrap

  As he hobbled across the wooden floor, he cast a glance backward, as if to make sure that she was still following.

  “Still here,” she said. “Just be careful. Be mindful of your hands. When you give me what I need, I can be on my way. This is all about to be over.”

  Not a superstitious person, Gail didn’t believe in angels and devils on your shoulders or in the importance of hairs standing up on the nape of your neck, but she sensed that something was wrong here. Perhaps it was the speed and ease with which Monroe had shifted from aggression to remorse. This effort at cooperation didn’t sit well at all.

  The phone number was important, but it wasn’t critical. With it, Venice could find the phone among the cell phone towers in Mazatlán, but mostly as a means to verify that Jonathan and his team were in the right place. Also, with the phone number, they could block Monroe from doubling back with a warning to Silva. That warning could spell disaster.

  But Gail had a plan for that, too. This house had a basement, and Venice had been able to find through a popular real estate app how the developer had laid them out. She knew exactly where the water heater was—and the furnace. By the time Gail left this place, Monroe would be securely chained to one or the other.

  “I’m going to have to reach inside one of the drawers,” Monroe said.

  “I don’t think you do,” Gail countered. “That doesn’t even make sense. No one uses pen and paper anymore. Open up your encrypted file instead, and pull up the number.”

  Another look of shock.

  “We’re very good at what we do, Billy,” Gail said. “We know about the files. We know your password to your machine, and we know that you have a thing for the kind of online porn that could get you put away for a long time.”

  Utter shock.

  She didn’t see a reason to tell him that they intended to share the kiddie porn link with the real FBI when this all settled out. If the Cortez Cartel didn’t execute him outright for dropping this ball, they would have adequate opportunity to off him during his inevitable long prison term.

  This was Gail’s first experience with flat-out vengeance, and as much as she knew it was well-earned, it all made her uncomfortable. Made her feel dirty. This was not what she’d signed on for.

  Monroe hadn’t moved for ten seconds or more.

  “The file isn’t going to open itself,” Gail reminded.

  “Of course.” Monroe made it to his desk, then stopped. He turned. His color was awful. “If I may ask, what is the rest of your plan for tonight? Are you going to kill me?”

  “Not if you don’t make me. You’re of no use to me dead.”

  “I don’t see how you can walk away,” he said. “If our roles were reversed, I would kill you. I would have to.”

  “I hope that is but one of many ways in which we are entirely different,” Gail said.

  “I want you to kill me.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t want to die at the hands of Silva and his henchmen.”

  “I need the phone number,” Gail said.

  “If I give it to you, will you promise to shoot me?”

  Gail knew there was a right answer. She believed that he meant what he was saying—at least for now—and she also knew that the words were driven more by pain and fear than by true belief. If she promised to kill him, she could always renege at the end, but that somehow made things only worse.

  “I can’t do that,” Gail said. “I am many things, and many of those things are shameful. But I am not a murderer.” As she spoke, she realized that she’d heard Digger speak nearly the same words. Were they merely the ultimate in rationalization?

  Gail saw the determination set into Monroe’s eyes. He was going to force the issue. Despite his wounds, he moved with startling speed to jerk open the top drawer of his desk, and even in the dim light of the desk lamp she could make out the grip of a chrome-colored revolver.

  As Monroe reached for the gun with his good hand, Gail lashed out with a kick that she hoped would break his wrist between the drawer and its slot, but he’d moved too fast. Instead, the door closed against the cylinder of the revolver.

  Off balance now, Gail dropped to one knee as she watched the gun come around on her.

  “Don’t!” she shouted, but he never slowed. Her finger jerked on the trigger, and she nailed him twice in the forehead, then once in the chest as he collapsed to the floor.

  “Goddammit!” she yelled.

  “What?” Venice asked in her ear. “What happened?”

  “I had to shoot him. He pulled a gun and made me kill him.”

  “You need to get out of the house, Gunslinger.”

  “He had a gun! Why didn’t he just shoot himself? Why did he make me do it?”

  “Slinger, listen to me,” Venice said. She’d engaged her motherly tone. “We got the confirmation we needed, and we got the plan. Call it a win and get out.”

  Gail stared at the body. Monroe wasn’t the first man she’d killed, not by a large margin, but each one seemed to carve a larger divot out of her soul.

  “Are you moving?” Venice asked.

  Gail closed her eyes and settled herself with a deep breath.

  “You did nothing wrong,” Venice said. “You’re saving Roman’s—”

  “I know what I’m doing, Mother Hen,” she snapped. “I know all too well what I’m doing.”

  Before heading back toward the foyer and on to the front door, she separated the suppressor from the pistol and slipped them back into their respective pockets.

  “You’re going to need to take the car directly to the scrapyard,” Venice instructed.

  “Yeah, I know,” Gail said.

  “I’ll make sure to have another car waiting for you.”

  Gail took the bud out of her ear and slipped that back into her pocket, too. Then she switched her radio off VOX. She didn’t need voices in her head right now, not even friendly ones.

  As she closed the door behind her, she scanned the surrounding homes, wondering how many video doorbells and security cameras were taking her picture right now. In the end, it wouldn’t matter because Venice would be able to wipe every record clear with a single swipe at the cloud.

  Gail and her team could do anything now, she thought wryly. They could crush constitutional rights, invade privacy, and even commit murder without consequence.

  All in the quest to save a life.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Silva closed his eyes and leaned far back into his chair, tilting the seat until the joint at the base cracked. Nothing about this plan had gone right. No, that wasn’t right. Everything about this plan had gone wrong.

  Santiago Pérez was going to be furious when he found out that the FBI bitch was still alive. God only knew what he would order as a result. His son, Fernando, would never be able to rest peacefully again, now that the once-greatest law enforcement agency in the world was going to be 100 percent committed to bringing the kid to justice because of the threat to their agent.

  This strategy had been stupid from the outset, but one did not live long by telling Pérez that he’d made a mistake.

  Ciara Kelly’s worth had diminished to zero now. In fact, she’d transitioned over to the liability column. He supposed that she could prove her worth in one of his other clubs, but he worried about the fact that she knew him in a context outside of the flesh trade. He worried that she knew him at all, for that matter. None of the other workers did.

  Still, the notion of killing her unsettled him. Again, it was the fact of the relationship. And her youth. Her father had proven himself to be a loyal employee for more than a few years. In retrospect, he should have trusted Patrick to do his best to do what was expected of him. He’d never said no in the past.

  On the other hand, he’d never been asked to commit so grievous a crime.

  So, the stupid decision to murder the FBI bitch was on Pérez, but the stupid decision to take Ciara as collateral was all on him. Silva was a big enough man to take
that responsibility onto himself.

  But what about Roman Alexander? What the hell had be been thinking?

  Silva studied the photo of the terrorists from the gentleman’s club. Though faceless, they certainly were recognizable. Especially the tall one. The huge one. These people had hurt the cartel before, he was certain of it. Multiple times, perhaps.

  There were stories from the Jungle Tigers up north near the Gulf coast about a suspected military intervention that left a dozen or more members of the cartel dead, including its leader, Orlando Azul. Rumor had it that the mysterious American team escaped by sea after an epic shoot-out at a seaside mansion.

  Later, as they were about to be arrested by a Mexican navy patrol boat, a helicopter from the United States intervened.

  Other rumors had swirled through Silva’s world about similar operations. Not just with the Jungle Tigers and Antonio Filho’s production operations, but elsewhere, as well. As often happens, these attacks took on a mythical status as they were repeated over and over. Among Silva’s associates, the group had become known as Los Raders Sigliosos—the Stealth Raiders.

  Now that he thought about it in earnest, it occurred to him that in each of the no doubt apocryphal stories, an element of rescue figured prominently. In the raid that killed Orlando Azul, the residents of an entire orphanage were escorted out of the country. In Colombia, as Filho’s production facilities were destroyed, several of the juvenile workers were also taken away.

  If Silva remembered correctly, one of the children taken from Filho was an American.

  The orphans taken from the Jungle Tigers were not, however, so he needed to be careful not to draw conclusions that would not be supported by the facts.

  The workers stolen from the gentleman’s club weren’t Americans, so far as Silva knew, but they were of a certain age, and their nationalities were from all over the globe.

  And they were stolen in a hail of gunfire. By Americans.

  Ciara Kelly was American. And Roman Alexander was most definitely from the United States.

  The coincidence was beyond troubling.

  Standing from his table, Silva slipped his paddle-holstered Glock 43 into the waistband of his trousers and walked to the door. Outside, night had nearly fallen on this long, difficult day.

  He strolled across the yard toward the barn. The screaming had stopped, thank God, and he wanted to make sure that Guzman hadn’t gone too far with Alberto, who would serve a far better purpose as a crippled example to others than he’d ever served as a manager of Silva’s business. He had no value as a corpse, however, and sometimes Guzman couldn’t stop himself. That man enjoyed his job far too much.

  As he crossed the threshold of the barn’s large double doors, he slapped the switch on the wall, bringing to life a line of three dangling incandescent lightbulbs. The artist in him admired the pattern of shadows that the dim yellow light created, a patchwork of geometric shapes and slashes.

  Even in the dimness, Alberto’s blood trail stood out in high relief in the dust and grit of the barn floor.

  Alberto himself lay in a heap on the far end. He was not moving.

  Guzman was standing over Roman, who was chained nearby. He spun around as the lights came on, his face a mask of worry, as if he’d done something wrong. Silva locked him with a glare and strolled closer to Alberto. The man was a mess. Both arms appeared to be broken, along with both ankles. His hands had been crushed.

  “Dammit, Guzman, what have you done?”

  He noted the look that transpired between Guzman and the boy, and he didn’t like what he saw.

  “He is not dead,” Guzman said defensively.

  “He might as well be,” Silva said. “Look at him. He will never heal from this.”

  “Was that not the point?”

  Silva had to laugh. Such was the simple nature of Guzman’s world. “Yes, I suppose it was. Are you sure he is still alive?”

  Guzman pointed with the head of the hammer. “His chest is moving. He is breathing. He is alive.”

  Silva pointed at Roman with his forehead. “What did you do to the boy?”

  “Nothing,” Guzman said, a little too quickly, Silva thought. “Not a thing.”

  “Why were you standing there so close to him when I came in?”

  “We were talking.”

  “Uh-huh.” Silva walked around the other man and approached Roman. In English, he asked, “Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right!” the boy shouted. His eyes were red and wet, and he looked terrified.

  “Did my friend hurt you?”

  “Yes! You were there.”

  Silva smiled. He admired the boy’s spirit. “I do not mean from before. I mean did he hurt you within the last thirty minutes?”

  “I can’t feel my hands.”

  Silva thought about that. Not being able to feel is, after all, the very opposite of pain. The kid had too much attitude and energy to have been hurt. Perhaps later.

  He looked at his watch. Billy Monroe should be reaching out to the frightened family any minute now, if he hadn’t done so already.

  “Guzman,” he said, summoning the man to join him at his side. In Spanish, he said, “I am concerned by the coincidence of the club being burned at the same time we are managing this other business.”

  “What do you think might be happening?”

  “That does not matter,” he said. “But I want you to bring in more of the boys. I want a triple guard here around the clock until further notice.”

  “Starting when?”

  “Five minutes ago. Make it happen.”

  Guzman seemed relieved not to be scolded or disciplined for whatever he was planning to do to this boy.

  When Guzman was gone and he and Roman were alone, Silva sat on the ground across from the lad, who at least seemed more comfortable now that he had a stable rail to lean against. Roman sat with his knees drawn up to his chest. Was it possible to lose weight in twenty-four hours? Roman Alexander seemed drawn, much thinner somehow than he’d been yesterday and this morning.

  “Are you unwell, Roman?” he asked.

  Roman gave him the kind of look that only adolescent children can muster on command. The silent, Don’t be stupid.

  Silva strained to peer over to the piss bucket they’d left for him. It was empty. “Have you been drinking the water we’ve been giving you?”

  Roman stared back, saying nothing.

  “It’s important not to let yourself become dehydrated,” Silva said. He reached out and patted the top of the young man’s bare foot. “This will be over for you soon.”

  Roman jerked his foot away, and Silva raised his hands in surrender. “It was a gesture of reassurance,” he said. “Nothing more, I promise.”

  “Where is Ciara?”

  “She is resting inside.”

  “What have you done with her?”

  “Young man, I am trying to be friendly with you, but you make it very difficult.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” Roman said.

  Such insolence. Silva reached out for Roman’s foot again, but this time, he grabbed it in a vicelike grip, and he yanked it straight, eliciting a startled yelp. “There’s a reason I never fathered children,” he said as calmly as he could. It took real effort to not show violence. “I don’t like them. They are not cute. They are not entertaining. They are burdens to be carried or business options to be exploited. Nothing more. You would be wise to consider your words before you speak them.”

  The boy’s face had changed. The insolence had morphed to fear, and Silva found solace in that. “I think I sent you the wrong message when I pressed Guzman about harming you. I fear you might have interpreted that as an interest in your well-being. Perhaps you think we might become friends.”

  Silva squeezed Roman’s ankle tighter and twisted it to its limit. The boy shifted to the side to ease the pressure. He let go, and Roman instantly retracted the leg and tucked his ankles under his thighs.

  �
�Look at that man,” Silva went on, pointing to Alberto Bris, who was just now beginning to stir. “The only thing keeping you from looking like him is a single command from me. I say this not to frighten you, though clearly you are frightened. I say this so that you understand the reality of your situation. When I clashed with Guzman a few minutes ago, it had nothing to do with you. I had given him orders not to deal with you. Yet. If that time comes, then let it come. Do you understand me? Understand what I am trying to communicate to you?”

  Roman’s head jerked quickly, spasmed, really.

  “If that was a nod, I would prefer to hear you say it.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Very well.” Silva forced himself to smile. “Now, moving on, what happens to young Ciara is none of your concern. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes. Sir.”

  “Much, much better, Roman. Truly, your life here will be so much easier if you think about your words before you state them. And showing respect to me is always important.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Very, very good.” Silva folded his own ankles under his thighs, mirroring Roman. “Tell me more about your friend, Mr. Grave. What is his first name again?”

  “Jonathan.”

  “Of course. Tell me more about Jonathan Grave.”

  The boy looked genuinely confused. “I–I don’t know what else you want to know.”

  “For example, does he travel a lot?”

  “I suppose,” Roman said with a noncommittal movement of his shoulders. “I don’t know what a lot means.”

  “Fair enough. Your mother works for him, is that correct?”

  “Yessir.”

  Silva could see that the boy had swallowed words he wanted to say. Probably something like, I already told you that. He considered it a good sign that Roman was thinking now. That his head was right, as the Americans liked to say.

  “Do you know any of his friends?”